Tools to Communicate Progress With Clients

[Rene]

What tools in terms of web apps do you use or would recommend to communicate progress with clients? Constant email and phone calls are great, but I would like an app where this can take place.

[NickC]

I use Excel to create Highlight Reports that we update and issue periodically every 2 weeks, whenever something notifiable (risks / issues) needs to be communicated, or whenever I am asked for an update.

I can format it easy and quickly just how I / the readers want it. Conditional formatting (red / amber / green) is used as a quick way to highlight the status of individual targets.

I also run a project dashboard that has all projects listed with key summary details for each project.
You can click on each project to open up the individual Highlight Reports which provides more detail.

Regarding communicating the info, you can put them on a cloud service and share a link with all that need to see it.

I have tried various tools for all different kinds of thing and I always come back to MS Project and MS Excel.

[laura_techadvice]

There are so many to choose from it's overwhelming. Have you researched any so far? I know TechnologyAdvice has reviews for a ton of PM tools, totally unbiased and free.